


false advertising

by tonyang (kurusui)



Category: ITZY (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28883934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/pseuds/tonyang
Summary: Chaeryeong has always been better at handling her words than Ryujin is. Ryujin would rather just face the consequences.
Relationships: Lee Chaeryeong/Shin Ryujin
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63





	false advertising

**RYUJIN’S TRYING TO FIND ME?**

Ryujin snatches her by the sleeve, loosening the clip that, carefully positioned by their stylist minutes earlier, held Chaeryeong’s tank top firmly in its place. Chaeryeong whirls around, eyes furious— 

“What exactly do you want from me?”

Ryujin stares at her, eyes glassy like they might spill over with tears. Really, she’s so unprofessional. Her makeup is going to start running if she doesn’t get it together, and that’s going to delay the entire shoot. She leans precariously against a temporary wall built for their set, voices from the other side drifting over the top, barely discernible. “I just want you to stop avoiding me.”

Chaeryeong narrows her eyes at her. “I’m not avoiding you,” she says, lying through her teeth. “I’m talking to you. Happy?”

“Can we just...?” Ryujin sighs, fingers pressed at her temples. “I’m just... very frustrated by what’s happening between us, and it’s so much worse because you won’t admit that anything’s wrong.”

Chaeryeong covers her face with her hands. “Can you not— say it like that? Nothing is happening.”

Voice rising, Ryujin bristles, close to catching fire. “This is what I mean when I say I can’t stand you sometimes!”

“I didn’t ask you to like me,” she mumbles. Just tolerate me.

She’s not looking at Ryujin but already regrets saying anything before hearing a nice loud “Fuck you, Lee Chaeryeong!”

Past the facade of an enclosed space, the open, echoing room goes silent.

Chaeryeong laughs at Ryujin, her lip bitten so hard out of anger that it’s bleeding. “There’s staff behind you, you know,” she says bitterly and redundantly, and then she walks away without looking back. 

**SHE’S STILL GOING TO KCON?**

There is in fact footage with audio of Shin Ryujin blowing up at Chaeryeong on the music video set, buried somewhere in the B-roll that no one really wants to touch right now. Whether fortunate or not, the shoot was private, running on a skeleton crew - that’s not enough to pull her from activities. Ryujin will be punished in invisible ways, restrictions on her freedom, increased scrutiny. Chaeryeong only feels a little bit bad for her.

“I don’t even want to be on the same plane as her,” Chaeryeong says, hand pressed to her forehead, collapsed into the living room couch.

“Think of the environment, love,” Jisu says, packing her suitcase in front of the TV, “the planet can’t afford to send Ryujin to New York on her own.” A whale swallows a school of fish whole on the nature program she’s watching in the background.

“Everyone thinks she’s so nice but she’s really a selfish bitch—” 

“Chaeryeong. Give it a rest.”

Jisu rests her hand on Chaeryeong’s shoulder and she wants to shake it off, but in truth she knows what was unsaid is a stark reminder to her: Chaeryeong’s not much better. 

After the fact Ryujin had publicly apologized to her in front of the managers and everything, and they’d hugged it out like friends would if they were capable of forgiving that kind of humiliation on camera. It was enough to pacify everyone involved, but Chaeryeong still glared daggers at Ryujin whenever they crossed paths which was literally every day, and Ryujin in turn acted stone cold to her. Now who’s doing the ignoring! So hypocritical. 

“You’re both a pair of hotheads,” Jisu adds gently. “It’s why they say you’re the only one that can stand up to her.”

“But I’m always second, huh?” Chaeryeong asks. It’s all about the balance of power. In some way Ryujin admitting anything has become a vulnerability, a crack in her shield— and now Chaeryeong’s the one burdened with the choice of what to do about it. Lose her advantage by admitting her own feelings? Sounds like a terrible idea. Tactically, no one would advise that.

“You know,” Jisu starts, worry in her eyes, before chickening out and turning back to her clothes. “Never mind.”

Chaeryeong sighs. “I know what you want to say.” 

“You do?” Jisu asks. 

She says it often enough: you can’t run from your problems forever. Obviously Chaeryeong has to suck it up and talk to her. That doesn’t mean she wants to do it.

**[ INTERLUDE: WHOSE FAULT WAS THIS REALLY? ]**

Usually the kitchen lights are off by this time of the night, but today Chaeryeong is making use of all of them. “What’s up?” Ryujin asks.

Chaeryeong’s hair is tied in a high ponytail, illuminated under the fluorescent light. “Making hotteok,” she replies. “Midnight snack.”

Ryujin goes to the fridge to fill her water bottle. “It smells good.”

“I haven’t even made a batch,” Chaeryeong responds, gesturing to the greased pan. “Would you hand me the bowl of filling?” Ryujin does and watches her wrap the dough around mounds of sticky nuts and sugar, occasionally helping flip the pancakes. 

After a rigorous wrist workout Ryujin sits at the table munching on the first one to come out. “It’s so sweet.”

“I think this is the first time we’ve ever cooked something together,” Chaeryeong says from the stove, and she laughs, airy and bright. “I’m happy.”

“Please,” Ryujin says modestly, “you did most of the work.”

“Are the others asleep already?”

“Yeji unnie was for sure, looked like Yuna might still be awake but she’s the one with school tomorrow.”

Chaeryeong joins her after plating the last ones. “I made ten, I shouldn’t have made this much batter.”

“You must have known I was coming,” Ryujin teases.

“Please, even you can’t eat this many.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Anyway,” Chaeryeong says, after a drawn out pause, “I’ll leave the rest in the fridge, they can reheat them tomorrow.”

The exhaustion has started to pile up on Ryujin, and she rests her head on the table, using her elbow as a pillow. Here is where Chaeryeong, who also really shouldn’t be awake anymore, makes the first mistake: 

“You know,” she says idly, “if I had a camera I’d take a picture of you right now. Perfect girlfriend shot.”

Here is where Ryujin makes the second mistake: she looks up. Chaeryeong is staring back at her, an unreadable expression on her face. Even in the artificial glow of the night her eyes radiate. In that moment Ryujin really does wish Chaeryeong would take that shot. 

“You’re—” 

Chaeryeong looks away first. 

“Are you going to help me clean up?”

**CHAERYEONG’S BEEN TALKING SHIT ABOUT ME?**

Jisu denies it but she’s really awful at lying. Sometime during practice at Madison Square Garden she let it slip that they’d talked about her and now Ryujin won’t let it go.

“Tell me what she said,” Ryujin begs as they descend the stage from the west staircase, clinging to Jisu’s arm. “I deserve to know what horrible things have been said about me.”

Jisu shrugs her off, fiddling with her earrings. “I don’t even know what you really fought about, you know that, right?” She looks skeptically at Ryujin, desperate as she is.

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

Jisu turns back to look at her, almost pitying. “Is it that surprising?”

“I just assumed that you did,” Ryujin says, and she stands at the bottom of the stairs processing while Jisu goes ahead. Of course Chaeryeong wouldn’t tell, it’s that privacy that landed them here in the first place. And still the curiosity eats away at her.

They draw sticks to determine how to split up the vlogs. “As fate would have it,” Ryujin complains under her breath, handed a video camera and met with Chaeryeong’s less than pleased face.

“At least we get to go shopping in New York,” Chaeryeong says, feigning joy. 

Members of their staff lead the way to the boutique, two blocks away. The sky is clouding over and Chaeryeong won’t look at her, so Ryujin decides not to look back. The tourist crowds do enough talking for the both of them. 

While they set up the tripods one of the directors suggests they wander around with the hand camera, explore the catalog. At a distance from the crew, Ryujin looks up at the high ceiling and realizes just how deep this place goes. “I want a sundress,” Chaeryeong offers, a starting point.

“Well I want a t-shirt,” Ryujin says, just to spite her. Chaeryeong glares at her.

“Delete that recording and start over,” she says, knowing it’s against the rules to destroy their own footage. “We have no choice.”

“Fine, sundress it is,” Ryujin says, pressing the red circle and signalling she’s restarted. “Chaeryeong-ssi, what do you want to buy today?” Like a switch flip, her voice goes enthusiastic, playful.

“Hmm,” she responds, holding up a hanger with a midi skirt on it and examining it. “I would really like a new dress. Perfect for summer, right?”

“There are so many pretty clothes here,” Ryujin says, panning to the rest of the boutique, the glass walls facing the street. “As expected of New York.”

“I’m really excited to find something.”

“You don’t look excited,” Ryujin observes.

Chaeryeong plasters on a fake smile. “Maybe you need to control how intimidating you are a little better.”

Ryujin turns the camera off. 

“Seriously, what is your problem with me?” Chaeryeong asks, arms crossed. 

Ryujin exhales loudly. “This is how I am, you’re just overly sensitive right now.”

“That’s because our team is full of idiots who thought it’d be a good idea to put me with someone who yelled at me in the middle of set two weeks ago.” 

All of this is true. “Look,” Ryujin says, cradling the camera in her hands. “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry.”

Chaeryeong’s not having it. “We both know that was just for show.”

Ryujin runs a hand through her hair. “Okay, yeah, but... I really mean it this time. I’m sorry that I hurt you and, you know. Did it in front of so many people.” Chaeryeong is looking past her at the filming crew, like she’s waiting for them to call them back so they can get this over with. Ryujin sighs.

“I still need to feel it to believe it. Words are less meaningful than actions.”

“Well, you shouldn’t lead people on,” Ryujin says, “it’s false advertising.”

“I don’t do that,” Chaeryeong snaps, teeth clenched. “Intentionally. Not if I’m being serious. When have I ever lied to you.”

“The problem is that I know you,” Ryujin says. And I understand you.

“Hey,” Chaeryeong says in the backseat of a van trailing behind schedule.

“What is it?” Ryujin asks, head resting against the window. It’s raining outside.

“I don’t really know what I’d do without you,” Chaeryeong says. “Maybe in an alternate universe I spend all my life deferring to unnies.”

Ryujin eyes her carefully.

“Who else will let you let off some steam. Yuna is too nice for you to use her like that.”

“I guess at my core I’m pretty nasty sometimes,” Chaeryeong mutters.

“Look who you’re talking to.” Ryujin laughs, every imperfect moment at the forefront of her mind. “If everything I said came out I would never live it down.”

Chaeryeong sighs, skyscrapers and city lights flashing by before her eyes. “If the world could see the real Ryujin and Chaeryeong, well, they wouldn’t be so loved, don’t you think?”

Truthfully, no, she doesn’t. “I think you’d be loved even more,” Ryujin says.

**...THE SAME HOTEL ROOM, TOO?**

Their manager swears it wasn’t planned, Yeji says in fact they were supposed to be intentionally separated but there was a communication mixup along the way and the hotel porters put their luggage in the same room instead. It would have been as easy as swapping rooms if Yuna hadn’t already strewn the contents of her suitcase all over the floor and left Chaeryeong to shower in the only unoccupied bathroom.

“I don’t have the energy for this,” she says, and storms into the bath with a bag of toiletries. Rain makes her even more crabby. Ryujin shuffles around the hotel room for a while, changing into a hoodie, spending a few minutes staring out at the city. Yeji knocks on the door to check in and she quickly shuts the curtains again.

“Hungry?” Yeji asks, hair still wet from the shower, a sheet mask on her face. “Here’s dinner.” She hands Ryujin a paper bag full of takeout, chopsticks and canned kimchi.

“Aren’t you embarrassed to be out here like this?” Ryujin asks with a wry grin. 

“It’s across the hall, it’s whatever,” Yeji says, waving her off. “Hey. I know you guys needed some space. Is everything going to be okay?”

“I dunno,” Ryujin answers finally, truly not sure what to expect of the night. “Hopefully. I think so.”

“We’ll switch rooms if things go south.” Yeji pinches Ryujin’s cheeks affectionately, her ears sticking out of the hood. “Aigoo, so cute, Ryusungie.”

Ryujin closes the door firmly and rolls her eyes. “It’s clear,” she calls, hearing the water turn off in the bathroom. Chaeryeong makes a sound of acknowledgement and Ryujin flops onto one of the beds to lie next to her phone.

Chaeryeong exits in a towel a few minutes later and Ryujin rolls over to look in the other direction.

“Thanks for the courtesy,” Chaeryeong says while pulling clothes out of her suitcase, only half serious.

“No problem,” Ryujin says, “I didn’t even think you’d notice.”

“I do notice things, you know.” 

Ryujin tries and fails not to read into that.

Sometime after dinner Ryujin is blow drying the last of her hair when Chaeryeong gets up to brush her teeth. They lock eyes briefly before Chaeryeong tears hers away, asking if she’s done washing up. “I am,” Ryujin answers, and they trade spots in front of the sink. 

“I’m sorry,” Chaeryeong says, concentrated on squeezing what’s left of her favorite toothpaste out of the tube she brought with her.

“For what?”

“Oh, you know,” she says, leaving space between her words. “Everything.”

Ryujin turns to look at her. Chaeryeong has started brushing her teeth, resolutely looking at her reflection in the mirror and nowhere else. Ryujin switches off the hairdryer, sheds her sandals and crawls into her bed.

“Can you turn off the lights before you sleep? And raise the thermostat?” Chaeryeong asks, out of sight. “I’ll leave the bathroom light on.”

Aside from the fact that she doesn’t want to get up again, the order makes no sense. “Can’t you do that on your way out?”

Chaeryeong dries her hands on a towel and turns off the bathroom fan. “I’m not even mad at you anymore, I just don’t want to see your face.”

Is she really Shin Ryujin if she isn’t constantly pushing the boundary? Last time it ended in absolute disaster. But Chaeryeong has always been better at handling her words than she is. Ryujin would rather just face the consequences.

“Because it’s so pretty?” she asks.

Chaeryeong looks at her from that distance for a long moment. Then she walks over. Ryujin, perfectly centered, moves aside just a little bit and Chaeryeong slips under the covers. Her arms find their way around Ryujin, face to face again. “It’s so cold out there,” she whispers, fingers delicately pushing strands of hair away from Ryujin’s eyes.

Ryujin hesitates before resting her head in the crook of Chaeryeong’s neck. “Not here.”

Chaeryeong flinches, but doesn’t let go.

Outside the sun is rising. When Ryujin gets back in, Chaeryeong is sitting on the balcony, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She left the glass door cracked open, and Ryujin pulls it back so she can join her, slowly so Chaeryeong doesn’t startle. 

“I was wondering where you were,” Chaeryeong says, turning to look at her. She looks well-rested.

“I tried to be quiet,” Ryujin says. Chaeryeong nods.

“I didn’t wake up because of you.”

Ryujin places a crinkly plastic bag of blood oranges on the round table. “They’re fresh,” she says. “I tried one from the vendor. Breakfast is coming soon,” she adds, looking at Chaeryeong’s phone in front of her, “but I thought I would take a walk anyway.”

Chaeryeong pushes the other chair out with the toe of her slipper, and it scrapes against the concrete floor. “Please join me,” she says. Ryujin slices an orange roughly for her with a plastic knife and the deep pink of its flesh is sweet against her lips. The skyline they look out on burns red, yellow, bright blue.

**Author's Note:**

> [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYxIpWpnVzs&feature=youtu.be) that converted me / [@haengseol](https://twitter.com/haengseol) (main) / [@likewaterising](https://twitter.com/likewaterising) (writing)


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